


Love is a Beast

by DarthAbby



Series: Washed Clean 'Verse [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bant POV, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthAbby/pseuds/DarthAbby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bant was there when Qui-Gon died, and she held Obi-Wan as his world fell apart.</p>
<p>A brief look at the background of Obi-Wan from 'Washed Clean'; fanfic in disguise for a school assignment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is a Beast

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a realism short story assignment about a month ago and finally got around to changing the names (back) to our favorite Jedi. Hope you enjoy it!

As it stands, all I can say is that they loved each other. Deeply and irrevocably, in the way that only one lost soul and another, found and saved by the other, can. They surpassed romantic and platonic bonds; indeed, I think they created a new category altogether, one born of the deepest loyalty and trust, usually seen only between brothers born of soldiering, war, and all the strife that comes with such bloodshed. In saving the other, they each saved themselves.

I don’t pretend to know everything, I only seek to report what I saw and heard during this lowest moment, put together with the pieces of what I learned afterwards.

Depending on your point of view, it either started or ended with a car crash.

* * *

 

Obi-Wan had just walked out of his first exam in Prehistoric Latin America, and he felt on top of the world. The test had been easier than he had anticipated, and he had flown through the questions with ease and walking out with forty minutes to spare. It was a nearly exhilarating feeling – passing his first test of his Masters’ degree made the whole endeavor seem more like the right idea after all.

I was the one who found him. We were old friends, going back to elementary school and remaining fairly close over the years. Just two years his younger, I was close to completing my nursing degree and spent most of my time doing hands-on work in the local hospital. I had begged for a break to come and find Obi-Wan when I heard the news from the emergency room staff.

My rumpled scrubs and wide, fearful eyes stopped him more efficiently than my shout.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Are you okay?”

“Obi-Wan – the hospital – you have to come –”

“What? Why? Bant, what’s happened?”

“There’s been an accident,” I said hurriedly. “It doesn’t look good. Qui-Gon is in surgery.”

The color drained out of his face and he swayed a little, looking as though he was about to be sick.

_“What?”_

“Obi-Wan, you have to _move_ ,” I said forcefully, grabbing his wrist and running back towards the hospital, thankfully only a couple of blocks away.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked as we ran, legs moving mechanically.

“I tried!” I snapped. “Straight to voicemail!”

A little color returned to his cheeks, a combination of the exertion and embarrassment as he remembered turning his phone off before the test bringing the flush to his pallid skin. We left words behind, saving their breath for the terror-fueled sprint.

Clutching our sides and panting heavily, we stumbled into the front entrance of the hospital. Drained from my sprint both to and from campus, I collapsed into one of the chairs in the waiting area as Obi-Wan moved to the counter to ask after his adoptive father.

He collapsed next to me a few minutes later, bracing his elbows on his knees and cradling his head in his hands. “Still in surgery,” he mumbled. I nodded silently, still trying to catch my breath. I rested one hand on his back in support, both of us ignoring the sweat soaking through our shirts and drying slowly from our hairlines, leaving uncomfortable itchy patches. “Bant, what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I was running an errand for one of the doctors and saw the EMS team bring him in. I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer, so I took an early break to find you.” It wasn’t the greatest plan I had ever come up with, but it was faster than waiting for Obi-Wan to call me back. He was notorious for turning his phone off and forgetting to turn it back on for hours on end.

Obi-Wan nodded slightly, just to show that he had heard me, already sinking into a brooding state. It was painfully easy to send him into a darkly contemplating mood to begin with, but with his father figure in an uncertain condition, the broodiness set in almost immediately. Not that I can exactly blame him – Qui-Gon had rescued Obi-Wan from an abusive household when he was twelve years old, old enough to already be deeply scarred mentally, emotionally, and physically. They had healed together over the years; Obi-Wan recovering from his childhood and experiencing what it should have been, Qui-Gon working through the heavy grief of losing his wife and baby in childbirth. I had seen it all, stood by Obi-Wan from kindergarten on, when a second grader had been kind enough to tell a group of third graders off for picking on one of the easiest and youngest targets in school. I had watched Obi-Wan grow from an angry boy, consummate protector of everyone but unwilling to let almost anyone in, to the kind-hearted young man beside me, eager to share and teach and learn new things himself, though still carrying the acidic wit and dark streak of humor he never quite shrugged off from his formative years.

If there was a God, if They were listening, I hoped and prayed that They would save Qui-Gon, if only for Obi-Wan’s sake. I worried that without his guiding light, Obi-Wan would fall back into the bleak gray character that occupied his space between the ages of about eight to twelve. He might be grown now, an emancipated adult, but both men still relied on each other, propping each other up and out of their painful pasts. I had no clue as to who might fill that role if Qui-Gon passed; certainly I would do what I could to help, but I had never been enough in the past, so who was I to assume I could fill the space in the future?

Time dragged on. I know now, from looking at reports, that it was only about an hour, but in the moment it felt like years passed with Obi-Wan and I frozen in place, helpless to do anything but wait for judgment to be passed.

When the doctor finally walked out, blue scrubs marred by bright red splatters, looking so tired I could almost believe he had been working nonstop for the years it seemed to have taken for him to finally speak to us. We stood and hurried to meet him half way.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “We did everything we could.”

A distant part of my mind took note of the medical maladies that followed, each reason another damning blow to my heart, but most of my attention was taken up by keeping Obi-Wan upright. He was leaning heavily against me, curling in on himself a little and staring down at the floor as though it would tell him that the doctor was wrong, that there had been some mistake, that Qui-Gon was s _till alive…_

The floor remained impassive, the doctor remained professional as he gave us his condolences and walked away, the hospital kept running, the world kept spinning, and Obi-Wan’s weight finally became too much for my smaller frame. We sunk slowly onto the floor together, oblivious to the hustle and bustle around us. Maybe things were still happening in the room, in the building, in the town, the country, the world, but the fact remained that one of the best men either of us had ever, would ever know, was gone, and we were sorely ill-equipped to deal with it.

* * *

 

Love can be a horrible thing, a raving beast with terrible teeth and claws that rip and shred and bleed you almost, but not quite, dry. You’ll be left alive, but wishing you weren’t. The more love you carry, the more ferocious the beast. That’s just the way the world works: if you love it, let it go, but keep an eye on its trail. It might just turn rabid while your back is turned.

I don’t regret one milligram of the love I held and still hold. It might bite me, scream at me, claw and slash and bleed me, but for each wound there follows a softer moment, of care and kindness and pure good, gently covering the sore with a bandage and an apologetic kiss. And if love has beaten me down so, I can’t imagine what it has inflicted on Obi-Wan.

And yet, as I watch him now, so many years older, wiser, more tired, all I can see are the metaphorical lipstick marks covering the scars. I lost a friend, a father figure of my own, and Obi-Wan lost his father, hero, and best friend, but we gained a new member to our small circle.

Anakin is good for him. Carrying some scars, but who isn’t? Smart enough to keep Obi-Wan on his toes, sharp enough to put even his wit to the test, unafraid to push when Obi-Wan needs a shove (or a kick) in the right direction, Anakin is like a gift from above. A perfect fit for the empty space, but not a copy of Qui-Gon. Something both more and less, the same and different, just what we didn’t know we needed.

We’re still a long way from being completely better again, Obi-Wan more so than me, but time, tears, Anakin, and his new love is helping. We’re on the road to recovery, and I think that’s the important thing. It’s what Qui-Gon would have wanted, in any case.


End file.
